


Dance of Death

by Lillily



Category: JackSepticEye (YouTube RPF), Markiplier (YouTube RPF), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: (eventually) - Freeform, Angst, Blood, Lots and lots of murder, Murder, Possession, how do i tag this??, seriously have no idea what to put
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 20:03:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13084371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lillily/pseuds/Lillily
Summary: There are no legends because there are no survivors.(Each chapter focuses on a new victim as Anti moves through the country in search of a familiar face.)





	1. Holy water cannot help you now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter titles are from Seven Devils, by Florence + the Machine  
> Chapters may also contain topics of suicide, so be warned

The night was quiet, cold, starless. A sharp breeze blew through the empty roads. He rubbed his hands together through his thin gloves as he walked along the bridge. No cars ran through, shying away from the cold steel that held it up. Every night he walked this path, watching the rails along the side. Winter especially called out to them, those lost souls, and he felt he owed at least something to the world. 

His old joints ached and his threadbare hat barely covered the little gray hair he had left. He had no cane, not yet, but teetered on the edge of going back to his little house near the edge of the bridge. Though he lived alone, it was comfortable there. It had warmth, and that was more to be said than the bite of the air outside. He set his mouth and looked up at his path. 

A shadow stood in the distance. It balanced on the edge of the railing, poised, unmoving. He began to move faster, but the figure didn’t move at all. Once he got closer, he could see the thin black jacket that waved slightly in the breeze, and thick bright green hair on the top of his head. 

“What are you doing out here, son?” He made his tone as gentle as possible. The other didn’t move from his stance on the other side of the railing. His knuckles were white on the cold metal. “It’s far too late to be out, and much too cold. I have hot chocolate at my house, if you’d like?” 

“Don’t give me a way out of this,” he responded, his voice cracked and broken. “You don’t understand.” 

“Could you help me to understand?” the old man tried gently. 

The man laughed, a bitter and defeated sound. He looked up at the sky, eyes bright blue even in the darkness. “No. I can’t. I barely understand it myself.” He removed a hand and gestured vaguely at himself, a twisted smile finding its way to his face. 

“If you can’t understand it, is it really worth dying for?” 

“Yes.” 

The answer was so immediate it startled him. “Now, what makes you say that?” 

Silence. He tilted his head, trying to make eye contact. Tears ran down the young man’s cheeks. He waited. 

“He…” The old man leaned closer, concerned. “He doesn’t want you to know.” It came out in a whisper, a breath of terror. The young man’s face turned, and finally he met his eyes. They were wide and wild, but the terror in them was unlike anything he had ever seen. Dark shadows had bunched beneath them, and his cheekbones seemed too sharp. 

“He?” the man prompted, unsure if he wanted to speak into the suddenly charged silence. 

His question was met with a high, giddy laugh that sent a shiver down his arms and spine. He resisted the urge to glance into the darkness behind him. 

“He wants…” the young man took a shuddering breath, closing his eyes and looking out over the water again. “...control.” 

The old man nodded slowly. He didn’t understand at all. “Control. Of you?” 

“Of everyone.” For a moment, he looked sad, just plain sad and defeated. “He wants control of everyone. But, y’know,” he offered another twisted grin and gestured to himself with a clawed hand, “mostly me.” 

“Well, you can either give in or fight,” he offered. “Dying counts as giving in to his control.” He still didn’t understand who _he_ was. 

Silence. 

“He wants me to do things,” the young man admitted, grip on the railing tightening. A gust of wind set his bright green hair in his eyes, but he didn’t move. 

“Do things like what?” The prompt wasn’t needed, but he felt the strangest mixture of urgency and curiosity. 

“Kill,” he whispered. 

The man’s blood chilled. “A specific person?” 

After a pause, there was a jerky nod, almost like a violent twitch. 

“Who does he want to kill?” 

Slowly, the bright blue eyes turned to him, wide and filled with tears of terror. His bottom lip shook. And his hands opened. 

He could do no more than gasp and lunge forward, but he had misjudged. He was too far, too late. The young man slipped out of his vision without a sound. The old man stood still. His hands gripped where the boy’s hands had held on so tightly just mere seconds ago. He didn’t want to see the rippling water where he had fallen. 

He lowered his head. He hadn’t even known the boy’s name. 

After a long moment of heavy silence, he lifted his head and opened his tired eyes. 

One blue, one green stared right back at him. He jerked backwards, startled, and something grabbed his throat and pulled. He stumbled forward, staring sightlessly at the bloody mess in the thing’s hand. It grinned, its mismatched eyes too wide, its smile too crooked. 

His life rushed through his mind, scene after scene, his mother, his childhood friends, his college days, his marriage, her death, countless other deaths he could not prevent, lives he knew were saved because of him until at last, it came to the last moments. 

_“Who does he want to kill?”_

Its chuckle was high pitched and insane. 

**"You."**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... here goes my first work. Lemme know what'cha think of it, I suppose.


	2. A thousand armies couldn't keep me out

The supermarket was bright, and the parking lot was nearly empty. Stars twinkled overhead, and a heavily bundled figure shuffled her way down the street. A grocery bag swung from her arm. The little apartments weren’t too far away, and it was always better to save both gas and her parking spot when she could.  


She was about halfway there, leaving the road lights and going into the darker, more deserted parts of the neighborhood when she saw him - a stumbling figure, who very nearly fell over in the street.  


At first she simply thought he was another man who simply got very, very drunk and was turned out of his home, but his run was steady and his eyes were clear if not for the fear in them.  


“Please, please, I need your help!” His voice sounded broken and terrified, and regretting her life decisions, she stopped.  


“What is it, sir?” she asked patiently, putting a note of sincere concern in her voice.  
He nearly ran into her, gripping her coat sleeves with white knuckles.  


“You have to help me,” he moaned, an Irish accent twinging his words. Dirty, bright green hair seemed to droop on his head, and his black clothing was torn. “I can’t - I -”  


Suddenly the man was sobbing, hopelessly crying in front of her, still maintaining a death grip on her coat. “It’s all too much; I’m going mad; stop him, stop me -”  


“You’re going to need to slow down a bit, I can’t help you if I don’t understand you.” She had no clue what to do, to pat him, to push him off and tell him to deal with it himself… she never envisioned herself with a man crying brokenly on her in the middle of the night.  


The man took in a shuddering breath, and another before pulling himself upright. His bright blue eyes were reddened.  


“There’s something - someone - inside me, and he’s dangerous and wants out.”  


She rethought her life choices once more before responding. “Who is he?”  


His eyes went wide. “I don’t even know,” he whispered. She was beginning to doubt her previous judgement of him not being drunk or high. Clearly, there was something very wrong in his head.”  


“I can’t help you,” she tried gently, reaching up to undo his hands from her coat, “but I think there’s a clinic downtown, you could find someone who _could_ help you…”  


He had begun to laugh, humorless, desolate sound. “No. No, it’d be too late. I need…” His face cleared for a second, and he stepped back. A strange light had entered his eyes. “You’re a woman walking late at night,” he suddenly observed. “You must have something to protect yourself with, right?”  


She narrowed her eyes. “What are you -”  


He fell to his knees. “Kill me.”  


For a moment, she was speechless. “What - why -”  


“It’s the only way to stop him, and he won’t let me do it himself,” he confided. A very cold feeling settled into her chest. He twitched violently and grimaced, gripping his head.  


“I can’t do that.” She didn’t even attempt to mask the horror in her voice.  


“Well.” His voice had changed, higher, almost unstable. She very nearly took off running when he looked back up, head lolling backwards on his neck, smile stretching too wide. “Isn’t that just a damn shame.” He blinked, black ooze slipping from one eye. He got to his feet, graceful and suddenly much, much scarier.  


“I don’t want any part of this.” She tried to put command in her voice, but the best she could manage was a weak whisper. She was frozen. Everything about this man was wrong.  


“You know,” he snickered, a high, insane chuckle that made every hair on her body stand up, “he really can be persistent when he wants something. Fortunately for me…” He stepped closer, smile growing wider, teeth bared. His fingers were in her neck, digging gently. “...so can I.”  


She was shivering, aware of everything around her, the way her breath rose in the space between whatever that man was and herself, the flickering street lamp’s light behind her, the sound of the bags falling from her hands to the pavement.  


And last of all, a wet sensation dripping down her front, a red something in the thing’s hand, a shrill, choppy laughter echoing around her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly am surprised I kept going.  
> I hope this ends up turning into a cohesive storyline? Discovery writing, man. It's a chore.


	3. I don't want your money

The train rattled so loud she felt like she couldn’t hear herself think. Some breezes were welcome, most were not, but she tended not to feel it either way. Past her lie the remnants of a life left behind. She knew she was better for it, but as she sat alone and watched the open fields and trees rush by the open door, she had to wonder how much better it really was. 

In those few moment the train paused on its journey, she went out to grab as much food from the nearest convenience store as she could, usually returning at a sprint with goods that weren’t entirely paid for. After one such trip, successfully dodging some poor store owner, she returned to find her open car already occupied. 

At first she had the jolting thought that the man was dead, but a second later she spotted the rise and fall of his chest with his breathing. Dried blood carved a path from his nose to his chin, his hair was dyed a vibrant green - though she could tell from experience that it hadn’t been washed in a long time. His black clothing was torn, exposing bits of unnaturally pale flesh. 

“Hey…” She took a step into the car, holding her plastic bag close to her body. It wouldn’t be the first time someone played hurt to get her supplies. 

The man’s eyes cracked open, and he flinched once, drawing his body up into a ball. 

“I didn’t mean to scare you, sorry,” she apologized quickly, taking a step back. “It’s just… I usually don’t see other people down here.” 

He gazed up at her with bloodshot blue eyes. “Do you have food in there?” His voice was barely above a whisper, hoarse and cracked. Her heart twinged, and she inwardly sighed at herself. She drew out a Twinkie and tossed it at him, giving in. His eyes lit up and he caught it, tearing into it with something akin to fury. She glanced away, resolving herself to the fact that she’d probably end up giving him more and paying for her generosity with an empty stomach later. 

She sat down, swinging her legs over the side of the motionless car. “What’s your name?” 

He hesitated for a moment, pausing with his meal. “Jack,” he finally said. “You?” 

“You can call me Scout.” She glanced at him. “What brings you here, Jack?” 

He was silent, staring at the wall of the train car with an empty gaze. 

She turned back to the outside view and announced matter-of-factly, “I was tired of being told I wasn’t worth anything. That I wouldn’t do anything with my life.” She snorted and looked down at her dirty hands. “And look at me now. I’m so successful, right?” That earned a half smile from him. “I really showed them,” she added under her breath, sarcasm dripping with the bitterness in her tone. 

“You’re controlling your own life, aren’t you?” 

For the first time, she realized he had an accent. She turned to him. His head was tilted as he watched her swing her legs back and forth. 

“You showed them you didn’t have to rely on someone to make your life choices for you. I’d say that makes you worth something.” His eyes were softer now. “You aren’t controlled, you control yourself.” Suddenly, pain flashed across his face, and he looked away. The beginning of her smile faded away. 

“Well, you’re doing the same, right?” She searched for some hint of ease in his expression, but there was none. “That means you’re in control of yourself, too.” 

A hollow laugh echoed through the train car. “I came out here because I’m not in control of myself. You, Scout, you’re a normal person, I’m…” He trailed off, and finally met her eyes. His own were rimmed with red. “One day, I woke up and looked in a mirror. What looked back wasn’t me.” 

“Like, dissociation?” she hazarded. He shook his head. 

“No. He - it smiled at me. And his - its eye was bleeding. And green. It wasn’t even a real smile, it was more like…” He took a shuddering breath and put his face in his hands. His rambling was slightly unnerving, but she grounded herself and listened. Whatever it was sounded serious, but she had no idea how to respond, or even what to call it. Hallucinations, maybe? 

“- no memory, covered in blood,” he was saying, and she felt a shiver run down her spine. His eyes had grown wild. “I knew _he_ had done it, but I couldn’t stop him. I tried so hard, I really did, but I couldn’t stop him…” The words dissolved into broken gasping, tears running down his cheeks and mingling with the blood at the bottom of his jaw. 

Suddenly his head snapped up, something in his eyes hinting of terror. She hadn’t noticed the hint of green in his eyes before. “You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?” 

“Of course not! It’s not like I have anyone to tell, anyway.” She brought her legs up from the rim. No, she realized, there was only green in one eye. 

“Because I don’t think he likes me telling, or he does, I don’t know, he doesn’t make sense -” he groaned and put his head in his hands, a grimace twisting his features. “I promise on my life I won’t tell anyone.” 

His breathing slowed. The train jerked a little, squealed, and began to move. She stood, moving away from the edge and kneeling beside his drawn up knees and hidden face. She reached out to pat his knee, but his hand moved faster. 

A second later, his fingers were wrapped around her neck, and a supernatural strength had lifted her off the ground. 

He was standing, and her desperate kicks didn’t seem to be doing anything to him. The thing was no longer Jack, not that man with the soft blue eyes and the kind words who ate a Twinkie in three seconds flat. His - no, he had been right, _its_ \- smile was too wide, too many teeth showing, some abnormal greenish color permeating his iris. His head was crooked to one side, and something unmistakably insane glittered in his eyes. 

“On your life.” He sounded as if he found her wording absolutely hilarious, and he laughed, a shrill, chopping sound that made her bones go cold. She couldn’t breathe. His body twitched, and he drew up a hand, fingers contorted into claws. “You gave me the perfect opportunity.” His pitch dropped dramatically on the last words, a sharp contrast to the rest of his words. “How could I resist after the perfect setup?” He laughed again, shorter but no less terrifying. Her nails raked his arm, but he didn’t budge in his grip. “You were so nice to him, with your empty words, he really thought he could beat me that time.” His face turned furious, eyes wide open and crazed, and he shook her. “But he was wrong! I am more powerful than he will ever be!” He screamed the words, still wearing that awful smile, and flung her from the open door. 

The train rushed by, and she could hear his laughter follow its path. Something hung from his hand, dripping red. 

She didn’t feel herself hit the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Random bursts of writing inspiration are great, aren't they?   
> I should really establish an actual schedule...


	4. I don't want your crown

“Alright kid, you sit right here.” 

The name tag reading Stevenson flashed as the he sat back in his chair, looking up to see a pair of officers coming through the door. A thin and dirty young man stood between them, pale with a floof of bright green hair sitting sadly on his head. Noland moved him to sit on the bench near the door, patting his shoulder as her partner leaned over and muttered a quick explanation. 

“He jumped in front of our car, so we figured we’d bring him here for a bit. He was shivering the whole way here, but he seems a little more calm now.” 

Stevenson nodded. “That’s fine. Did he say he had any family?” 

“No, sir. We already tried asking him, but he was dead silent the whole way.” 

“Thanks, Evans. I’ll watch him.” He waved a hand, and the pair left the lobby, the employee door swinging softly shut behind them. His gaze turned to the bench and its huddled occupant. The man looked young, maybe mid-twenties, but there were deep circles beneath his blue eyes, and they looked red, as if he had been crying. “What’s your name, son?” 

He lifted his eyes for barely an instant before flicking them back to the floor. “Jack,” he mumbled. Stevenson noted the lack of the last name, but didn’t comment on it. 

“You got anyone you want to call, Jack? We’ve got a phone right over here.” He gestured towards the wall, but Jack shook his head, a little violently. “Just a suggestion. You don’t have to call anyone. We’ve got some snacks in back, if you want some.” 

At the mention of food, his head snapped up, his posture straightening. Stevenson turned to the closed door behind him. “Hey, bring some chips out here for the kid,” he called, turning back to Jack and winking at him. “There’s a vending machine, but we opened it for ourselves a while back. We figured we deserved some candy bars after the long days.” 

Noland opened the door with an open folder in one hand and a large Snickers in the other. “They’re not chips, but they’ll do.” She smiled at Jack as she walked over and handed it to him, expression turning slightly worried as he immediately tore it open and started eating. She turned away and back to Stevenson, lifting the folder. “Did you see this?” 

“The murder? Sure did.” Stevenson opened his little notebook. He liked to keep track of the things he had to deal with, just a little quirk that helped him with the job. His wife claimed it made him paranoid, and sometimes he had to agree. He glanced at the clock. It was late, he should be getting home after his replacement came. “The numbers have been steadily increasing the past few months, but not by any significant amount.” 

“There’s probably nothing in that,” Noland waved off, leaning on the counter. “They don’t have any patterns, so it’s not a serial killer.” 

“Maybe he’s just really efficient.” Stevenson smirked as she rolled her eyes. 

“We’ve been over this. We’re on the outskirts of L.A., of course there’s a lot of murders. You can’t have a big city without them.” She poked at the pictures and grimaced. “This last one really was bad, though.” 

Stevenson didn’t have to look at the pictures to know which one she was referring to. Someone had been torn to pieces in an alleyway, so badly that they couldn’t identify the person or even the gender yet. It looked almost like a partnership between a rabid dog and a madman, both human and canine teeth marks found on the pieces of the body. 

“Did you see the one where they thought they found a skin sample, but it just turned out to be sulfur?” Noland shook her head, holding up a photo. “How do you even mess up that badly?” 

“There’s a serial killer in L.A.?” 

Both cops turned to see Jack, candy wrapper empty but expression rapt and curious. 

“No, but this guy runs on conspiracy theories.” Noland jerked a thumb at Stevenson and grinned at him. 

“It’s because they’re all so vastly different and weird,” he grumbled in retort. _And all in the same place, and none of the killers have been caught. _“It makes no sense for these to not be connected.”__

____

“What kind of weird?” 

____

Stevenson raised his eyebrows at Noland, but she shrugged and answered anyway. “Just unexplainable. Things that you usually wouldn’t find in a murder case.” 

____

“Don’t worry about it, we’ll take care of it.” 

____

At Stevenson’s piercing gaze, Jack quickly apologized. “Sorry, it just sounded interesting.” He lifted his shoulders and looked away. Noland looked like she was about to ask about his accent, but Stevenson shook his head at her and jerked a thumb to the back. “I used to study things like these back home,” he added suddenly, eyes glued to the folder Noland had closed. The hint was clear, and Stevenson sighed and rubbed his eyes. 

____

“What can it hurt, chief?” Noland cocked her head. “There’s nothing here you can’t find with a quick internet search.” 

____

Tiredly, he waved a hand, and Jack actually left the bench, coming close to study the makeshift file. He smelled as bad as he looked, and Stevenson noted that he had been wrong about his blue eyes before. One was green. 

____

A tiny shiver went down his back at Jack’s expression as he spread the photos out. It seemed like too excited a look, but he wrote it off as nothing more than morbid fascination. Something about his countenance earlier made it clear to him that this kid wasn’t the type to commit murder. 

____

“Where were all of these?” 

____

The unnatural feeling returned, and Stevenson eyed him again. Over the years, he had sometimes tried to write off his initial reactions to people as just that, but when he did, he often found himself regretting it. Jack’s face was way too excited for this. He almost looked like he was about to start bouncing. He poked a photo, one of little symbols on the wall, presumably made of blood from the victim. “Does anyone know what this says?” 

____

Noland frowned at him, starting to pick up on the weird vibe. “We’ve had some strange types come forward to say they were words… but we didn’t think they were anything more than incidental marks…” 

____

Jack laughed, and there was definitely something wrong with it. Unmistakable glee was written all over his face. 

____

Stevenson’s hand drifted towards his belt. They were understaffed, and he didn’t want to be taken off guard. 

____

“Hey, Noland, you want to take a look at the cameras?” Evans came out of the back room, looking confused. “They’re seriously glitching out.” 

____

All three officers looked towards the camera in the immediate corner, but it looked perfectly normal. 

____

“You three are so stupid,” Jack sneered, somehow still wearing a smile. His voice had changed, turning high to low to high in unpredictable patterns. His laugh mimicked the same tone, an eerie, choppy sound. Stevenson slowly drew his weapon beneath the counter as Jack continued. “No, you’re _all _so stupid. Idiotic, with your tiny minds and your little machines - you really thought they’d do anything to me? I could destroy you all with a better vessel than this weak -” he made a violent gesture, snarling, but it quickly shifted into another too wide, too sharp grin. “Just wait until I find the other one. You’ll see how smart you are then.”__

______ _ _

Without warning, he snatched up Noland by the neck and somehow his thin, wasted body, before their very eyes, threw her across the room. She crashed against the glass and fell into the street with a shower of broken shards. 

______ _ _

“That was bulletproof,” Evans managed, eyes wide and jaw hanging loose in shock. Stevenson drew his gun, firing it twice without hesitation. The thing that said it was Jack laughed and leapt across the counter, the bullet in his head bleeding already. Evans screamed as he was tackled to the ground, trying to cover his face as the demon slashed at it, tearing into his neck. 

______ _ _

Stevenson rushed it, hitting it as hard as he could off Evan’s choking body, causing its head to hit the side of the counter so hard it bounced off and he thought he heard a crack. He jumped to his feet and whipped his gun forward again, but the thing had reached up and gripped his arm in an iron hard vise, bending his wrist back at an unnatural angle, but slowly, so Stevenson struggled against the supernatural strength helplessly as Evans drowned in his own blood behind them. He tried to aim a punch at the thing, but it caught the other arm and sneered at him. 

______ _ _

“You really think you’re a match against me?” Jack laughed, the sound boring into his head. “You humans are really pathetic, so predictable, you and your circles, fucking circles!” 

______ _ _

The sickening sound of Stevenson’s wrist snapping was followed by the gun clattering on the floor, and he shouted in pain. The thing drew him to his knees, a cruel spark of madness dancing in its eyes, the green one oozing something dark. 

______ _ _

“They won’t stop until they find you,” Stevenson promised, gritting his teeth against the thing’s crushing grip. He was sure at least one of his fingers had broken. 

______ _ _

“Or until they’re dead.” It bared its teeth and grinned and slipped a knife from his pocket, long and deadly. “More fun for me!” 

______ _ _

The knife rose up and plunged down, in and out, in and out. Before the third round, Stevenson had lost consciousness, and by the seventh, he was dead.

______ _ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha, here we go...


End file.
